My Journey to Lose 200 Pounds

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As promised, here is a full post over “What I Ate Thursday.” I think these are fun because like I’ve said before, I’m curious about what other people eat, especially curious to see what a normal food day looks like for other people. Well, here’s mine!

Breakfast

Jimmy Dean omelet-240 calories

Whole grain toast-130 calories

1 and 3/4 cup skim milk-140 calories

Breakfast total=510 calories

Snack

V8-70 calories

4 multigrain crackers-70 calories

1st snack total=140 calories

Lunch

French bread-160 calories

2.2 ounces deli turkey-68 calories

Mini brie wedge-70 calories

2 and 1/2 tbs wine jelly-75 calories

2 compari tomatoes-25 calories

Lunch total=398 calories

Snack

13 baked chips-110 calories

Individual guacamole cup-100 calories

2nd snack total=210 calories

Dinner

Small russet potato-220 calories

3oz cooked chicken-130 calories

1/8 cup lite shredded cheese-40 calories

3 tbs BBQ sauce-68 calories

2 tbs whipped lite butter-100 calories

3/4 cup green beans-35 calories

Dinner total=592 calories

Late evening snack

Tea bag-0 calories

1 tbs honey-60 calories

French vanilla creamer-25 calories

Late night snack total=85 calories

Total calories today-1935

My goal is to eat around 1900 calories a day. This is a very typical day for me. I ate pretty much the same thing all week except I had two breakfast options and two dinner options just so I don’t get bored.

My sandwich this week was absolutely phenonminal! I’d normally make my sandwiches on normal sandwich bread, but I wanted garlic toast for dinner with my Caesar salads (had that twice this week for dinner), and I didn’t want to buy two breads, so I made my lunch sandwiches on the same bread I bought for garlic bread.

On my sandwich was brie cheese, shaved deli turkey, and wine flavored jelly. It was sooooo yummy! I never got tired of it all week. I’ll be picking up some more of those mini Brie bites at Trader Joes this weekend for future sandwiches.

Speaking of Trader Joes, I’ll be going there this weekend! I’m so excited because when I go, I always stock up on my favorites from there. They have just so many easy go to meals which makes eating healthy for me just that much easier.

The main reason for the trip though is to go celebrate my nephews 2nd birthday in Dallas! He’s the absolute best thing ever and of course I’ll have lots of pics to show you when I get back.

I’ll be going to a couple of my other favorite places in Dallas this weekend too, so I’m excited to blog about my adventures when I get back!

I’m sorry. It’s been a VERY long time since my last blog. I feel like there is much to talk about, but not enough time (or energy) to do so. But, there are a few things I’d like to share with you, so here I go!

First, I AM still eating healthy. Well, 5 or 6 days out of the week. Some of my new favorite healthy foods are Greek yogurt mixed with either honey or chocolate PB2 with raspberries…

As far as exercise, I started a women’s cardio kickboxing class a few weeks ago. I’d love to go into detail about the class, but I’ve got a lot to fit into this one post, so I won’t. I will say though, I’m definitely loving the class! It’s hard work! I drank 3 bottles of water my first class and was completely drenched in sweat that first night. We did a lot of pushups, jumping jacks, burpees, crunches, sit ups, wall jumps, and lots of punching and kicking into bags. Unfortunately because of my schedule, I didn’t get to go to class last week. I’ve got 2 more weeks left of class that I’ve paid for so hopefully I get to go to all the classes this week. (It’s a Tuesday/Thursday night class.)

Other than the kickboxing, my only other exercise is a weekly run. My newest accomplishments are that I ran at a 4 mile per hour pace (which is slow to most but it’s a nice jog for me) for 20 minutes straight the other day without stopping. I don’t know how I did it, but I did! Also, I beat my fastest time for running one mile last week. I ran one mile in 13 minutes and 20 seconds. I beat my time by over a minute, so I was pretty proud of that.

As far as my weight loss, I’m slowly going down and it’s taking longer because I’m just not as strict as I have been in the past. I’ve lost 84.4 pounds, and my lowest weight was 287.6.

My BFF, Megan, just sent me a picture she put together using a before and after shot of myself. It’s so crazy how much different I look that I wanted to share it with you! Thanks again Megan for sending me that!

Some other great news I have is that I recently started back to school! I have been out of school for a little over 3 years. Even then, the last school I was in was for culinary, so it wasn’t really a normal class with tests and studying and homework. I’m going to have to put a lot of effort into this class (human anatomy and physiology) so that I can then enroll into the radiology technician program. As you’ve probably read from previous posts, I’m sick of my job and my life needs direction and I want a CAREER not just a job. I’m finally focused enough to put that goal into action, so that’s exactly what I’m doing, and taking this class is the first step!

Even though I have a lot going on right now, I’m going to make an effort to get back into posting pretty regularly. I miss it! I mean, who doesn’t love talking about themselves? 🙂 Haha

And last but not least, it’s national dog day, so I thought I’d share a few of my favorite pictures of my dog, Pudgy.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” – Allen Saunders

Life has been kinda crazy lately and I’m sorry I haven’t really been posting as often as I have in the past.

I have several excuses (good ones!). I took a short trip to Dallas to visit my sister this past weekend and to watch baby Ethan. I brought along the BFF and we had a great trip. We ate some delicious food, drank some of my favorite matcha tea from White Rock Coffee, and just had a really great time.

Immediately when I got back to Tulsa, things began to fall apart. First, I got in a wreck on my way home from picking up my dog at my dads, then the nice police man (sarcasm!) gave me a ticket for inattentive driving, then I called to see how much the ticket would be and I was told it was mandatory court for that type of ticket.

It’s going to cost me $250 to fix my car (thank God for great insurance and a SMALL deductible). I’m not sure how much the ticket will be but I’m budgeting $250 for it just in case. Who knows, it could be more! And now I’m also sitting here worried about having to go to court, something I’ve never done before, and I’m just stressed.

Ah, stressed, the key word there. I have been stressed a lot recently because of my job. Some extremely unfair things have been going on, causing my paychecks to be affected and it just seems completely unnecessary that it’s even happening. Nevertheless, it’s been the root of a lot of my stress. Add in all the other car stuff, and you end up eating chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy on your day off and completely forgetting about doing anything healthy, all because of stress.

Don’t fear though because today things are MUCH better! Yeah, I still have all that other stuff to deal with, but I’m feeling positive and I’m out of that small rut I got into. I hate to use the phrase “fell off the wagon” but I did indeed “fall off the wagon” for a few short days (5 to be exact.)

Today though, is a new day. I may have gained 4 pounds back, but I’m still extremely focused on losing weight and I have even set a new goal for myself. I’d love to see myself under 250 pounds, so I need to lose almost 50 pounds to reach my new goal.

Even though this past weekend was full of unhealthy delicious food, I’m still going to tell you about it. Trust me, it’s worthy of sharing!

On Saturday night, my sister paid for dinner for Megan and I since I was watching Ethan over night for her. She didn’t have to do that, I would have done it for free, but it was so nice of her to do that for us. Since we’d be in Plano, my sister suggested a few places and Meg and I decided on a place called Zanata.

We both had a glass of red wine to start. Then, we shared the brussels sprouts hot appetizer which also had cauliflower, sweet potato, and bacon in it.

It came with a delicious sauce we both loved and couldn’t figure out what it was. We asked and the waitress told us it was caesar dressing. Sounds weird but it was great on the brussels sprouts!

Megan ordered one of their specials. It was a beef tri-tip with some fancy named noodles and a spinach pesto with some kind of cream sauce. It was also very delicious.

Since we were treating ourselves, we also shared a dessert. We ordered the lemon basil cheesecake. It was sooooooo creamy and VERY yummy!

Look at that creamy filling! It was the PERFECT balance of lemon, herb, and sweet.

If you’re ever in downtown Plano, TX, I suggest you try this place out!

The next day was filled with even more great food. We decided to start the day off right with our iced matcha green teas from White Rock Coffee and then head to Klyde Warren Park for some lunch from the food trucks.

We shared the banh mi tacos (my absolute favorite!) and 3 of the sliders from The Butchers Son food truck.

We got the Mac-N Beefy, the Southern Hospitality, and the Dead Elvis sliders.

These were really great! My favorite was the Dead Elvis with bacon, melted peanut butter, and melted Nutella. Mmmmm!

After the park, we went to Sprinkles to get a cupcake and we went to Dude, Sweet to get some chocolate. I heart this chocolate place so much. This time, I got a sampler box.

Some of the chocolates tasted just like they said they would, and others fell kinda flat. Either way, it was fun trying all the cool flavors!

On our way out of town, we hit up The Container Store and drooled over all the different containers. It’s like they have containers for your containers! I could be so organized if I could afford to buy some of everything in that store. 🙂

Our last stop before leaving town was In-N-Out Burger.

I’d never been before because we don’t have those in Tulsa so I thought I’d like to try it before we leave. I haven’t eaten red meat or burgers very often since I started losing weight. So I’m not sure if the burger was extremely delicious or if I just loved it because I hadn’t had a burger in so long! Haha, either way, it was tasty and I ate the whole thing.

Sadly, Megan and I had to come back home to Tulsa and back to reality. We really did have a great trip though and we found out that we vacation well together so we plan on vacationing together again for sure.

We’re both so addicted to matcha tea that who knows, maybe we’ll drive back down to Dallas soon for more!

So it seems like since the last time I posted my updated weight (11 days ago), my weight has sorta fallen off easily since then!

I hit 299.2 pounds on the 15th. That was a major milestone as its been soooo long since I’ve been under 300 pounds. The next goal after that was to hit 75 pounds lost.

If you remember, I started out at 372 pounds and I’m glad to say that as of this morning, I’m at 293.5!

That’s a total of 78.5 pounds lost!

I did a little calculating and figured out my average weekly weight loss is almost 3 pounds a week. I’ve been dieting and changing my lifestyle since December 18th, 2012, or 27 weeks ago. This is the longest by far that I’ve ever stuck to eating healthy and exercising regularly. It feels amazing!

I guess my next goal is to hit 100 pounds lost, and you know what that means? It means I need to think of a reward for myself! My 50 pound weight loss reward was my bright Skechers tennis shoes. I loved them so much that they turned into my exercise shoes. Those shoes really helped me keep my weight loss going. So I want my 100 pound weight loss reward to be just as great! Any ideas you have are appreciated!

A second milestone I had was last night when I exercised! Megan came over for a walk/run, which usually means walk because I’ve never really been able to run. We started out walking and then power walking and then finally I said, “ok, let’s run to that car.” We ran on and off for most of the workout. And the crazy thing is, it was A LOT easier than times in the past where I tried to run.

We ran/walked about 2 miles in maybe 35 minutes. Here’s our crazy run path!

It was a great and fun workout and we both decided we wanted to do it again soon! I think we’ll try for Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. And of course, I’ve still got jazzercise both days this weekend so maybe one day, I’ll get a double workout in!

The Tulsa Color Run was this past weekend, and it was my first time participating. If you remember from my goal list, I had on there to complete The Color Run, and I’m glad to say, I did!

It took about an hour to finish, and I was definitely happy with that time. I got my mom to do the 5k with me and I’m glad it was something we got to do together!

If you’re not familiar with The Color Run, it’s basically a fun 5k where you start out wearing a white shirt (and some pants of course!) and along the way, you get covered in colored powders. In the end, you end up looking like a rainbow. 🙂

The race was great because about 5 times along the way, they had the color stations set up. It gave you something to look forward to so that the exercise part didn’t seem so bad.

Here are some before pictures…

Like I said earlier, there were color stations along the way. At one of them, I told my mom that we should take a pictures, so we stopped over by the “orange” sign to take a couple pictures. As I was pulling out my phone from the ziplock baggy, my debit card flew out of the ziplock and bounced down into the rain drain on the side of the road. I’ll forever remember the color run for the fact that I lost my debit card down the drain!

Here I am right after it happened. I’m pretty sure I was annoyed…haha.

I quickly forgot about the debit card and enjoyed the rest of the race with my mom. After we finished, we met up with Megan and took some after pictures.

And then we refueled with some KIND nut bars they were handing out after the race. Yum! I had the dark chocolate nuts and sea salt one. Delicious!

After the race, I of course took a long shower, but I had blue coloring in my ears for 2 days after! It was a really fun race though and I’m already looking forward to The Color Run-2014!

I’m setting a goal right now to be able to run (not walk!) The Color Run next year. We shall see…

I had another follow up appointment at the doctors yesterday and I’d say it went even better than expected!

My blood pressure was 126/78. Three months ago, it was 150/98. It’s down 24 points on the top number and 20 points on the bottom number. The almost normal blood pressure reading came as a huge surprise to me! It felt like a huge justification that the changes I’ve made are really working and that I’m doing the right things. This literally made my day!

Although I didn’t hit my 50 pound weight loss goal at the doctors visit (at least not that day) my doctor told me that for every pound lost, your hearts pumps approximately 7,000 miles less than it did before you lost the one pound. That’s good stuff to know! My heart is working a lot less harder now. My doctor told me he’d give me a gold star if he had one. 🙂

As for the results from my blood tests and urine sugar test, I’ll have to wait a few days or so for those.

And finally, I saved the best for last, my weight! Now, at the doctors office, I’m weighing in a little heavier because I’ve got clothes and shoes on. My weight yesterday at the doctors was 326. My weight that morning at home was 323.1. For some reason, I had the urge to weigh myself again this morning, so I did. I weighed 319.9! I finally hit my 50 pound goal, and then some. If you read my last post, then you know how badly I wanted to be out of the 320’s, and I’m finally out! Twenty more pounds to go and I’ll be in twoderville!

As of right now, I’ve lost 52.1 pounds! I can officially claim my 50 pound weight loss reward, those amazing bright colored Skechers. It’s a good thing I already ordered them. 🙂

The season finale of TBL was tonight and guess what? My favorite contestant won!! Dani lost 121 pounds. She lost 47% of her body weight! That’s almost half! How insane is that?

I go to the doctor tomorrow morning and I’m hoping to have hit 50 pounds lost tomorrow. If I hit 50 pounds, I’ll have lost 13.44% of my body weight. I like that on TBL they put the weight loss into percentages. It gives you a better understanding overall of what you’ve lost.

After watching the finale and seeing how great everybody looks now compared to their before pictures, it’s given me more motivation. I want that to be me. I am more motivated than ever to get to my goal weight.

I’ve been stuck in the 320s in weight for what feels like forever now. I’m tired of being in the three hundreds anyway. I’m determined to break through and hit “twoderville.”

Twoderville- When one who weighs 300 pounds or more loses enough weight to reach between 200-299 pounds.

Of course my end goal is to be in onederland.

Onederland- When one who weighs 200 pounds or more loses enough weight to reach 199 pounds or less.

But that’s still a ways off, so for right now I’m setting a goal to get to twoderville.

I’m not working out or exercising very often right now. I work long days and get home late most evenings. Today I got home at 8:15. I’ve realized that weeknights are just not the best time for me to exercise. So I’m going to set a schedule for myself and plan out my exercise on days that are good for me.

Recently, I’ve been getting together with the BFF on Wednesday evenings and exercising in my apartments gym. So far, this has been working out for me because it’s just one night a week of eating dinner late. Also, I prefer having a buddy to workout with, so working out on Wednesdays has been great.

Friday nights are also good. Even if I get home late from work, I can still go exercise and then have dinner and not have to worry about getting up early for work the next day since I’m off on weekends.

Since I’m off on weekends, I’ve got plenty of time to fit in some exercise. Saturday afternoons, Saturday evening, Sunday afternoons, all are times I could be getting in some exercise.

So that’s my plan, to get in 3 forms of exercise a week! If I do that, I’ll be in twoderville before I know it!

~There are only two rules for being successful. One, figure out exactly what you want to do, and two, do it.~
– Mario Cuomo